``Doctor Mac,`` as he was called by Medill School of Journalism students for more than 50 years, was the author of Interpretative Reporting, a standard text in journalism schools throughout the world. The text and his teaching emphasized not merely the ``who, what, where, when`` of journalism, but also the necessity of reporting the ``why`` of an event.

He was, in addition, a battler for liberal causes, the supervisor of the Illinois WPA Writers` Project and a candidate for Congress in 1944 and 1970 and the U.S. Senate in 1948.

A memorial service for Professor MacDougall will be at 4 p.m. Nov. 30 in the Kendall College Westerberg Academic Center, 2408 Orrington Ave., Evanston.

Professor MacDougall is survived by his wife, Genevieve; daughters Bonnie M. Cottrell, a public school teacher, and Priscilla Ruth MacDougall, a lawyer; a son, A. Kent MacDougall, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times; and five grandchildren.

``He wrote over a dozen books,`` Priscilla MacDougall said. ``But his chef d`oeurve was Superstition in the Press. It was published in 1983 and documented how much superstition is reported in the press as fact. It wasn`t as important as Interpretative Reporting, but it was very dear to his heart because, as his students well knew, he was always talking about how much superstition is reported in the news media. A Chicago Tribune article once called him `feisty.` Well, he was, right up to the end.``

Professor MacDougall began work in 1918 on the Fond du Lac, Wis., Reporter at 15. He worked as a reporter or editor for the Two Rivers, Wis., Chronicle; United Press; the St. Louis Star-Times; and several other newspapers over the span of his career.